Posted on 03/28/2008 5:13:55 PM PDT by SwinneySwitch
AUSTIN - Spurned by the Texas Democratic Party in its effort to stall this weekend's county conventions, Hillary Clinton's campaign said Wednesday it is mobilizing caucus supporters and helping those who want to challenge the legitimacy of some Barack Obama delegates.
The Clinton campaign itself won't challenge Obama's delegates at the approximately 280 county and state Senate district conventions Saturday, said Clinton state chairman Garry Mauro.
"I have always known the grass roots to generate credentials questions," he said. "There's no systematic approach that we're taking to challenge anybody at any level."
But the campaign is using a behind-the-scenes strategy. It is giving legal advice to some voters who are mounting challenges and is having volunteer lawyers closely watch the proceedings, Mauro said.
"Are there going to be corrections in mathematical errors? Yes," he said, describing hypothetical examples of how a local delegate count might be changed.
Obama's campaign also has people looking closely at delegate counts and individual counties, said spokesman Josh Earnest.
"Our people are there to ensure that the process goes well and not to try to obstruct the process, and hopefully that's what their people will be doing as well," Earnest said.
Both campaigns have staffers in Texas to round up supporters and hold training sessions before Saturday's convention caucuses.
Hundreds of thousands of people attended Texas Democratic precinct caucuses after the party's primary concluded March 4. Those caucuses began the selection of 67 pledged delegates to the Democratic National Convention. The next step is the county conventions this weekend, which will pick delegates to the state convention in June.
The candidate with the most supporters signing in at each convention level will benefit in the awarding of caucus delegates.
Last week, the state Democratic Party refused a request from Clinton's campaign to postpone county conventions and take extra steps to verify the signatures of election night caucus-goers.
State party Chairman Boyd Richie said the party will not "set up an unnecessary, ad hoc verification process" and said county and Senate district conventions already have credentials rules in place to address complaints and problems.
Clinton's campaign said it still wanted more time to review March 4 caucus sign-in sheets and locate and verify voters, but that it would work with the time allowed.
The campaign has said it received more than 2,000 complaints of violations following the huge Texas turnout. Among the problems cited were caucuses starting before precinct polling places closed and results being taken from head or hand counts instead of a written roll.
In an unofficial and incomplete caucus tally, the state Democratic Party reported Obama was ahead of Clinton 56 percent to 44 percent after 41 percent of precinct caucuses reported.
Clinton narrowly won the primary stage of the contest, which allocated 126 delegates.
Representatives of the Obama and Clinton campaigns in Hidalgo County - a Clinton stronghold on the Texas-Mexico border - spent Wednesday trying to resolve final disputes before Saturday's county convention.
The Obama campaign challenged the math used to apportion delegates in some county precinct caucuses. The Clinton campaign also disputed figures in some precincts, but had not filed a formal challenge, said Hidalgo County Democratic Chairman Juan Maldonado.
Maldonado said he expected the campaigns would have lingering disagreements resolved before the convention.
"There are no incidents," Maldonado said. "There are no reports of anyone trying to circumvent the process."
Which of course means: "There's a systematic approach that we're taking to challenge anybody at any level."
As legitimate of grass roots as a field of Astroturf.
The Harridan Hag Hillary, learned well from her early stalinist mentor, Saul Alinksy, to exploit the rules in order to gain power even if the majority does not support you or your cause.
Why not just require picture IDs at the time a primary voter/caucus goer signs in? Oh wait, Democrats are against that, but Hillary's hypocrisy knows no bounds.
She’s probably right about the extent of Obama’s caucus win. It was widely reported the day of the primary that his supporters were on hand at polling places with sign-in sheets that could essentially allow someone to caucus without ever having to show up for the caucus.
OBAMA/WRIGHT 08
Isn’t it nice to see the Democrats squirm with the Clintons running amok. Now how do they like it with the Clintons aiming their fire at them. Bill and Hillary don’t care about the Democratic Party. They are above them, in their mind, and they will take them out in order to get the nomination. Oh, the joy of watching Democratic pundits speak of the dilemna of the Clintons and their party.
Exactly right. If Obama wins the nomination and somehow were to win in the general, at least he can be controlled. The Clintons know no bounds. They have total free reign. If they are willing to destroy their party for power, imagine what they will do to the Republicans (not to mention the country) with a rat controlled congress? Clintons are waaay scarier.
She won El Paso County 120 to 7.
If Hillary is elected president she will owe the illegals big time.
I thought democRats fought AGAINST verifications of voters.
Please don’t take offense, but El Paso County was not on the Obama agenda, and was not really a priority.
His staff targeted Houston, DFW, Austin and San Antonio with early sign-ins. A big reason there was so much confusion the night of the caucus is because there were more people signed in than were on the premises, and, while they may otherwise be morons, most of Clinton’s people can count.
Obama’s staff were very smart in how they handled things. They knew which precincts were more heavily weighted in distribution (which was not entirely based on population) and they gamed the system where possible.
democrats change rules to suit there agenda.
The reason Obama ignored El Paso County is because it is 80% Hispanic.
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